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PDT 50% approval!

Media hostility to President Trump has been unremitting since he secured the Republican nomination. It didn’t stop, or even slow down, with his inauguration. The many achievements of his young administration haven’t given the press pause, either: his coverage continues to be just about 100% negative.

What, then, to make of the fact that Rasmussen Reports, which conducts the only daily presidential approval poll of likely voters, finds Trump at 50% approval and 49% disapproval? Those are better numbers than Barack Obama had in the same survey at the same point in his administration, and the press boosted Obama almost as relentlessly as it denigrates Trump.

At a minimum, it means that a great many Americans have figured out that the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, NBC, CNN, etc. are partisan outlets and not to be trusted. This, of course, is a process that has been going on for a long time. Indeed, it largely brought into being the “blogosphere” of a decade and more ago. But it seems to me that we are seeing something like its culmination. The liberal media have so thoroughly squandered their standing with the public that their capacity to do ill is limited.

That doesn’t mean that the press does no damage at all. As I have often said, we can’t even imagine what a world without a liberal press, academia and entertainment industry would look like. In a neutral world, among many more profound consequences, President Obama could never have won a second term, President Trump would be riding high, and no one would be worried about the midterm elections. Still, the fact that most Americans seem to be tuning out the press can only be a good thing.

It must have been the Stormy Daniels story that’s made the difference.